Let's rewind to around August 20, when I signed up for AT&T DSL. I did it online, then had to call them to finish it up. I was told that the activation would be August 29. Or that's what I heard. This seemed slow, but not totally ridiculous.

But what would Corporate America be if not totally ridiculous?

From a location other than my apartment I was able to use their convenient chat support. Really great. Nice guy. Helped work through step by step. We finally figured out the problem: It is not September.

AT&T: "I see that the service activation date is set to 9/29/2011."
Me: "9/29, as in september 29?"
AT&T: "Yes."
AT&T: "However, as you have installed the equipments, I would like you to contact our sales team and they will activate your services as soon as possible."
Me: "Is there any way to do that online?"
Me: "I mean, that must be a typo. That would be an activation date over a month from when I signed up"

I got the equipment only a few days after I signed up. They did not wait around on that. In fact, I got a "we've sent your stuff" email the same day. It arrived soon after. This was not "cheap slow shipping", but a bit short of "expensive overnight". Why... Why would they spend the money to quickly get something that is not need for a MONTH?

Now I have to get more minutes for my phone so I can call them and hopefully convince them how incredibly stupid this is, and as an added bonus, might convince them to activate it sooner.

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It gets better! I called to see if there was any way to speed things up. They tried half-heartedly to get my to upgrade my service, which might have worked if it meant a faster installation. Somehow the soonest possible installation became mid-October. So I canceled and tomorrow I'll send back the pointless equipment they sent me.

Sadly, the other major ISP in the area has nothing between 1 and 12 mps (I was aiming for 3-6), and of course everything is "cheap for 3 months, then we start reserving limbs and future children."

Maybe I'll just have to get used to having no internet. Unless anyone knows of a decent provider in Madison, that might be my only option. I'm hoping to pay $20-30 a month, but that doesn't seem to be an option, at least not before October.

It must be a generational thing, that I cannot imagine it taking a month and a half to get electricity to an apartment near a city of a quarter million.

From outside America it really does seem that your corporations hire guys with spreadsheets to work out how they can save nickels and dimes by chiseling their customers without quite being annoying enough that said customers cancel.

@Anonymous: My family uses AT&T back home and they seemed to be alright. The price was good and didn't involve any deceptive bundles or pricing. I just can't believe they could possibly be so incredibly slow.

@Stabs: That is how they work. I suggest a documetary/propaganda piece called "The Corporation". One interesting idea from it: corporations are being treated as people, and corporations not only are not people, but if they were, they'd be sociopaths.

Few corporations have complete monopolies, but many have just enough to not have any practical difference. We used to go after them when this happened, such as in the 90s when the justice department went after Microsoft, but the regulators are not just defanged, but also apathetic, at best.

That sort of weird slowness/delay is the reason I'm not an AT&T customer anymore.

Moved across town (same CO - I checked) and did all the upfront stuff. Called 30 days in advance to schedule the switch off/move/reactivation. Called 3 days before as I was packing up to confirm everything.

When I called to schedule the reconnect, they told me that the earliest they could get to me was 2 weeks, despite all of the planning. So I called my local cable internet provider, and they said "is tomorrow too soon?" Needless to say, I called the AT&T folks back and told then to go pound sand.